Filed at 3:44 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Crime is causing major companies to reconsider investments in Mexico, the head of Sony Mexico has warned in a meeting attended by President Ernesto Zedillo.
``The situation with respect to public security is so critical that it is starting to give sufficient reasons for the company to decide to diminish its investment or move its installations to a more secure country,'' said Shin Takagi, quoted by several Mexican newspapers Tuesday.
Takagi spoke as the representative of Japanese assembly plants in Mexico
during a meeting Monday at the presidential residence, Los Pinos.
Sony has four assembly plants, known as maquiladoras, near the U.S. border at Tijuana, Mexicali and Nuevo Laredo, employing 13,000 people.
``At this moment, we do not have plans to move to other countries,'' the
newspaper El Universal quoted Takagi as saying. But he added that ``if there is no change ... we would have to seriously consider these things.''
Major border states such as Tijuana and Chihuahua have been plagued in recent years by violence linked to the illegal drug trafficking. Kidnappings are a problem in some regions. Many companies complain that their shipments are also being targeted.
Takagi said Sony doubled its spending on security measures last year to $1 million. A shipment of 250 television sets was hijacked at a plant entry
last week, he said.
In comments to the group, Zedillo praised the booming growth of the assembly plants -- which have helped make Mexico a global export power -- but did not refer directly to the complaints about security.
The newspaper Reforma said Interior Secretary Diodoro Carraso that the problem was largely one of perception because crime rates are already falling. ``We have a long way to go, but the important part of this effort ... in social perception,'' he was quoted as saying.
On Monday, police in the central state of Morelos detained a sixth suspect in connection with the kidnapping of the 8-year-old daughter of Tan Jochimuro, a Japanese businessman, in April.
The suspect, Alberto Blaz Ramirez, is a former employee of the private security company that guarded the Firestone tire factory in Cuernavaca. Jochimuro, a shareholder in the factory, reportedly paid a $2 million ransom for the girl's return. Five other suspects were detained Friday.
Last year, gunmen shot to death Japanese businessman Jido Sazayama in central Tijuana. In 1996, the president of Sanyo Video Inc. America, Mammoru Kono, was kidnapped in Tijuana. He was later released.
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20000510/03146acf/attachment.htm>